


poison oak

by gigantomachy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Catharsis, Depression, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Sirius Black, Porn with Feelings, Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Smut, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:53:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27964103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantomachy/pseuds/gigantomachy
Summary: A cathartic post-Azkaban fic, set just after the end of Goblet of Fire/at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix.Sirius and Remus have been living together in 12 Grimmauld Place for two months and have mostly avoided each other. One night, over a bottle of firewhiskey, they decide to finally get everything out in the open.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 19
Kudos: 143





	poison oak

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for this pairing/fandom. I just wanted to write something where Remus and Sirius actually deal with their boatload of issues.
> 
> CW for discussion of depression, suicidal ideation, body image issues, and alcohol abuse.
> 
> I’m not down with JK Rowling or any of her transphobic bullshit. TERFs can catch these hands. I still love the Marauders, but I associate them more with The Shoebox Project, which I’ve been obsessed with for over a decade, than the actual books.
> 
> Sorry if there are any mistakes with canon, I haven't read the books in ages. And I'm an ignorant American, so hopefully my use of British slang isn't too bad.
> 
> Title is from the [Bright Eyes song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Z2zfr1mrI) of the same name, which also happens to be my favorite song. I think it fits the mood of the fic pretty well. Must've listened to it a million times while writing this.
> 
> _I'm a single cell on a serpent's tongue  
>  There's a muddy field where a garden was  
> And I'm glad you got away, but I'm still stuck out here  
> My clothes are soaking wet from your brother's tears_
> 
> _And I never thought this life was possible  
>  You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for_
> 
> _The end of paralysis  
>  I was a statuette  
> Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench  
> And when I press the keys, it all gets reversed  
> The sound of loneliness makes me happier_

Sirius’s return to Grimmauld Place felt surreal, like stepping into a time capsule. The house seemed almost unchanged from the last time he had seen it in 1976. Laying on his old bed, surrounded by the Gryffindor paraphernalia, Quidditch posters, and Muggle pin-ups he had charmed permanently to the walls what felt like a lifetime ago, Sirius couldn’t help feeling as though he was the one who didn’t belong, who had fallen out of time. As though he was nothing more than a ghost, bloody Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, momentarily materialized in his younger self’s room. At any moment, sixteen year old Sirius Black would kick the door open and fling himself down on the bed, and the shadow that was his older self would dissolve into dust.

To be honest, Sirius had never expected to live past thirty anyway. There was that Muggle saying: “Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse.” That could have been Sirius’s motto. So maybe it wasn’t surprising that part of him felt like he had died at the age of 21, that his life had ended that Halloween night. He wasn’t quite certain if it had happened the moment he saw the lifeless body of his best friend or the moment that he was tossed into that cell, locked away where the world could forget about him.

In either case, he couldn’t help but feel as though his story was long since over. Everything since then just felt like the credits rolling.

Sirius had stuck around for a reason: to protect Harry, to help him stop You-Know-Who, to make sure that last piece of James and Lily would continue to exist. But the future was for Harry and his peers, not for Sirius. He had no place in it, no purpose other than to preserve it for them.

It was funny. He had spent over a year on the run from the law, both magical and muggle, in places ranging from Barbados to a cave just outside of Hogsmeade. And yet, though the danger he faced was unchanged, he now found himself back here in the most obvious place anyone could think to look for him. If he could have been here this entire time, then why had he been on the run in the first place? Well, the stakes were higher for everyone else, now that You-Know-Who was back, so the risk to himself didn’t seem as important.

On the other hand, now that he was here, he almost had to question whether going on the run had ever been about safety, either his or anyone else’s. Now that he was safely sharing his home with Remus, at least when the other man wasn’t out on missions for the Order, he had to ask himself why he hadn’t just done that to begin with. What had kept him away from Remus for over a year after his return? Was he really trying to protect him?

Or was he just trying to protect himself? Because the fact was that, every time he looked into the eyes of his old friend, all that he could see was the reflection of what he himself had become. What the years had done to him, what they had turned him into. Remus was the only one left who had really, truly known the Sirius Black who had lived in this house. He was the one who could compare Sirius to what he had been, could understand just how deeply the past fourteen years had broken him. His presence sometimes felt almost physically painful, because all he did was remind Sirius of everything they had lost, of the wrong turn that had swallowed almost half of their lives.

This was why, even now that they lived together, Sirius still avoided his old friend whenever possible. Neither one of them kept normal hours, but Sirius especially tended to stay up until the sun had almost risen, to slip in and out of the kitchen at the times he knew from experience Remus was unlikely to be there. They had to see each other for Order meetings, of course, but at least then they had the buffer of a crowd. With the others there, it was easier to pretend, to fall back into the role of Sirius Black, still loud and reckless, even if tempered by the years. When they were alone, though, he couldn’t keep up the facade.

Remus seemed to understand, or else he had his own reasons for wanting to avoid Sirius. Maybe it was just as painful for him to see what Sirius had become as it was for Sirius to be seen. It seemed like he was always out of the house on some mission or another. Just as soon as he’d returned from the last, he would accept a new one from Dumbledore and disappear again.

Because of that, it wasn’t until the second month of living together that Remus was home for the full moon. Thanks to Snape, he had the Wolfsbane potion, even though he was no longer at Hogwarts. (The fact that Remus needed Snape to make him the potion was sometimes the only thing keeping Sirius from punching the slimy git, or else throwing him bodily out of the house, during some of their encounters at the Order meetings.)

Despite the fact that they barely saw each other, Sirius still kept track of the lunar cycles. It was a habit he had adopted in their school days, and one that he never quite managed to break, especially since looking at the moon through the bars of his cell had been one of the few things that engaged his mind during those long years. After Remus spent the first moon away on a mission, Sirius had automatically assumed that he would be continuing the pattern. And so, on the morning of the second moon, having not seen Remus in several days, Sirius felt confident enough to poke his head into the kitchen for some breakfast at a reasonable hour for a change.

By the time he realized that Remus was not only home, but already in the kitchen, it was too late to turn tail and run. At least without making it blatantly obvious that he was avoiding him. So, trying to look nonchalant, Sirius just nodded at the other man and made his way to the pantry. Pastry in hand, feeling obliged to stick around for the sake of appearances, he found himself leaning against the counter and shooting glances out of the corner of his eye at Remus, who was sat at the table with the Prophet.

Sirius suspected he was only pretending to read, and as the silence stretched out unbearably, he found himself saying, “Full moon tonight, huh?” It was a stupid thing to say, but he had never learned how to stop himself from trying to fill uncomfortable silences.

Remus glanced up at him in surprise, lowering the paper just a tad, before nodding.

“Will you be here for it, this time around?” Sirius asked, and Remus nodded once more.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got the potion, so I won’t be any trouble. I usually just curl up and nap. If it would bother you to have me loose in the house, though, I could shut myself in the cellar.”

Sirius almost wanted to smile at that, at how Remus could talk so mildly and politely about his transformation into a werewolf. Like it was an unexpected guest he was trying not to bother Sirius with. There was something absurd about him offering to crate himself up in the cellar, but then, there had always been an element of the absurd to Remus’s condition.

“No, no trouble at all. Even if you weren’t in control of yourself, it’s not like I care about any of this shit. In fact, if you want to let off a little steam, feel free to smash some of the plates and furniture up.” In spite of himself, Sirius felt himself a little cheered by the prospect. He would love to see the look on his mother’s face at her son inviting a werewolf to ravage all of the precious family heirlooms. He’d love to see her belongings shredded to pieces by those enormous claws.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Remus said, and the way his lips quirked up at the edges sent a jolt through Sirius, a strange mix of feelings: fondness, followed by pain, because for just a second, he could see Remus as he had been, back when they were young and still full of hope.

This was why he avoided talking to him. The last bite of his pastry seemed to stick in his throat, and Sirius fought to swallow it. Quickly, he mumbled something or another and excused himself from the room. But the nostalgia must have gotten to him, because for some reason, he found himself pausing in the doorway.

Unable to turn and meet Remus’s eyes, Sirius blurted out, “Hey, I know it’s not necessary anymore, not to keep you from hurting yourself. But… if you’d like some company that doesn’t smell like food, I could join you. As Padfoot, obviously. For old times’ sake.”

For some reason, as he cut off his own rambling, Sirius’s heart was pounding. Maybe because, despite spending the past two months together in this house on and off, they hadn’t really spoken about anything of substance. This was the most vulnerability he had allowed himself in Remus’s presence since that night in the Shrieking Shack.

When Remus answered him, his voice slow and careful, “I’d like that. If it’s not an inconvenience, I mean,” the relief that flowed through Sirius was strong enough to leave him speechless. The moment felt fragile, and Sirius didn’t want to ruin it, so he only nodded and left the room.

* * *

It was strange, being Padfoot for Moony again. It was strange, also, being with Moony when he had taken the Wolfsbane. There was less snarling, less need to keep him in check. He had said he would nap, but Padfoot’s energy (which came from both the dog and from Sirius himself, who was half high on the excitement of having Moony back) was infectious, and they ended up chasing each other through the halls all night, slamming into walls and smashing furniture to bits.

Sirius was more than happy to tear the house to pieces; he only wished his family could be there to see what had become of their beloved estate. The members of the Order might be concerned when they came for the next meeting and saw the state of the place, but fuck them. They already thought he was half-crazy after his ordeal in Azkaban, so he might as well give them something to whisper about.

When the morning came, and Remus turned back into a man, he stayed sprawled on the floor, only moving enough to cover his nudity with a robe. Despite how much calmer the wolf had been that night, compared to back in the old days, he seemed exhausted. Sirius supposed the transformations must take a lot out of him, even if the time in between them had become less strenuous.

Sirius could have turned back into himself and gone back upstairs. Remus didn’t need him now. But, worn out from the night of running around the house, he found himself wanting to just curl up on the floor at Remus’s side, and so that was what he did.

Though he seemed barely conscious, his eyes mostly closed, Remus made a small noise of amusement as Padfoot flopped down heavily by his side. He reached a hand out and ran it carefully through the dog’s fur, scratching all the best places: behind his ears and even his belly, just like he used to. He hadn’t forgotten, it seemed, or at least his muscles remembered.

If he had been human, Sirius might have cried from gratitude, but the dog brain didn’t have room for anything so complicated as that. The dog brain felt only pure, untainted happiness, settling into a light doze and letting everything fall away but the touch, the warmth, the smell of Moony by his side, like nothing had ever changed.

* * *

You would think that, after spending so much time in dog form while he was imprisoned, Sirius would be sick of it, but that wasn’t the case. There were major advantages to being a dog. He couldn’t think as much, for one. The dog’s instincts took up enough space in his brain that he could stop remembering, at least for awhile.

Besides that, when he was a dog, no one expected him to talk. More importantly, _Remus_ didn’t expect him to talk. And if he threw himself down on the couch cushion while Remus read, or laid down on his feet, the man would end up absentmindedly petting him, as if on autopilot. All in all, being a dog turned Remus’s company into something he could tolerate.

Though Sirius hadn’t brought himself to ask, Remus seemed to be on a break between missions, and spent much of his time reading and doing research in one of the many sitting rooms. For days after the full moon, Sirius’s patterns changed completely. Rather than hiding away, brooding in his room, he spent most of his time in the guise of Padfoot, nearly glued to Remus. This way, he could do all sorts of things that would be unacceptable in human form, like whine for attention and shove his nose into his friend’s side, and it could feel as though things were almost normal between them.

So, of course, Remus had to go and ruin it.

Not that much time had passed, probably less than a week since the full moon. They had been alone in the house all afternoon, sitting in silence in the drawing room, Remus reading and Padfoot lounging on the floor, when Remus decided to break the peace between them. It came out of nowhere, after almost two hours of silence.

Remus folded his book shut, setting it aside. He didn’t speak at first, but the atmosphere changed, somehow, enough to get Padfoot’s attention. He raised his head from where it rested on his paws, gazing up at Remus questioningly, and from his spot on the sofa above him, the man met his eyes.

“Padfoot, can you turn back for a moment? I’d like to talk.”

Fuck, he didn’t want to. He wished he could refuse. Just pretend to be a normal dog, one who couldn’t understand Remus’s words. But there was no way around it, so, feeling trapped, he shifted back to human form. A moment later, he realized he should probably get off the floor and quickly climbed up to the couch, leaving a wide gap between himself and his friend. “Yeah, Moony?”

Neither of them looked at the other as Sirius waited for Remus to speak. Remus was staring down at his own hands instead. After a moment, he said, quietly, “I don’t quite understand. You’ve been avoiding me for months, up until the full moon. And since then, you want to be around me, but only when you’re in dog form. What’s going on?”

Sirius felt a flash of surprise at his friend’s boldness. Back in the day, Remus would have shoved the problem under the rug, let it fester until Sirius decided to address it. He had expected that they would go on ignoring the strangeness of their situation by mutual agreement. Yet here they were, with Remus suddenly deciding to put Sirius on the spot, to force him to explain himself.

Sirius wanted to resent him for this, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to. They hadn’t communicated when it mattered. He hadn’t told Remus who the secret keeper was, and Remus hadn’t commented on the way Sirius had withdrawn from their friendship in the months leading up to James’ death. If either of them had said something, had been just a little more honest, their entire lives might have turned out very differently. With this in mind, Sirius decided he was going to be open with Moony this time, no matter how awkward he felt. They had lost too much to play those games anymore.

“You’re right, I was avoiding you,” he confessed, staring off at a spot on the other side of the room. “So much has happened, and talking to you would have made it too real, I think. But after the full moon, I realized that if I was Padfoot with you, I wouldn’t have to talk or think about it. And…” Sirius paused, brushing his long hair behind one ear, wondering how far the honesty policy should go. Finally, deciding to go for it, he let out a sigh and continued. “When you first saw me in the Shrieking Shack, you hugged me for a moment. Occasionally, since then, Harry has hugged me as well. That’s… Those moments are the only time in fourteen years that anyone has touched me without meaning to hurt me.

“I don’t know how to deal with that sort of thing anymore. Being close to other people, I mean. When you turned back the morning after the full moon, and I was still Padfoot, you were petting me, and it felt… I liked it, I guess. And I thought that if I kept being Padfoot, you might keep doing that, and it wouldn’t matter that I don’t know how to be my human self around you anymore.”

That was the real truth, though Sirius hadn’t fully admitted it to himself, not until the moment he spoke the words to Remus. Back in the old days, things like that had come so easily to him. He was always touching his friends, whether to roughhouse or to sling an arm over their shoulders, to rest his legs on James’ or Peter’s lap. Then he had spent so many years with nothing but the Dementors and the bars of his cell for company. He didn’t know how to be Sirius with other people anymore, not like he used to. But when he was Padfoot, he didn’t need to know. The dog took care of it for him.

Remus was staring at him, now, and Sirius had to bite back the urge to snap at him, to say something sharp and sarcastic to make up for the feeling of vulnerability. He fought it down, forced himself to hold the other man’s gaze. After a moment, Remus let out a sigh. “To tell the truth, I don’t know how to talk to you normally now, either. But you can’t keep hiding as a dog.”

“What else can we do?”

There was a moment of silence as Remus considered this. Finally, he nodded, seeming willing to take charge of the situation if Sirius would not. “We’re going to do what we should have done ages ago and actually _talk_ to each other.”

Sirius felt something almost like panic rising in him at the prospect, but he could tell from his tone of voice that Remus wasn’t going to let him wriggle his way out of this. “Fine,” he sighed, standing up from the couch. “But I’m not doing this down here. I hate this fucking room. And I’m not doing this sober. I’ve got some firewhiskey stashed upstairs, in my room. Let’s get proper sloshed, like we used to, and then maybe we’ll remember how to talk to each other like real people.”

Remus let out a huff, like he was trying to seem annoyed, but the corner of his mouth twitched like he was fighting back a smile, and he let Sirius lead him upstairs without complaining.

The whole time they had been living there together, Remus had never seen Sirius’s room. It had been his sanctuary from everything he didn’t want to deal with, and Remus had been included in that category. But he didn’t comment on it, just settled himself on top of Sirius’s bed—the only seating in the room—looking slightly out of place.

As Sirius grabbed an unopened bottle of firewhiskey, he couldn’t help but shooting glances at Remus, sitting there on the bed, looking around curiously at the posters and decorations. It was like a scene out of sixteen-year-old Sirius’s daydreams, having one of the Marauders over to pal around in his room. Like a normal kid with a normal family. He had spent so many holidays hanging out in James’ bedroom, had even been to Peter’s house, but only now, years after his whole family had died, was he able to do something as normal as having a friend over.

Grabbing the bottle, he went to settle down on the bed, leaving several feet of space between them, but Remus patted the spot next to him (like he was calling over a dog, Sirius was amused to realize), and said, “Get over here, you plonker.”

Though his muscles were tense with nerves, and embarrassment that he had admitted how much he missed human contact, Sirius tried to act natural, flinging himself down beside Remus, close enough that their sides were touching. Tentatively, he tilted his head, letting it come to rest on Remus’s shoulder. It was at the perfect height, since Remus was a few inches taller than him. He hated it, a little, the way that such normal contact with a friend was so difficult for him now, but when Remus put his arm around his shoulders in return, he slowly allowed the tension to seep out of his muscles.

The firewhiskey helped even more. Neither of them had bothered to bring up any glasses, so instead, they silently settled on just drinking straight from the bottle, passing it back and forth. The liquor burned his throat with each long swallow, but as the warmth of it spread through his veins, he began to truly relax. For the first time since Remus had asked him to turn back into himself again, he realized, _I can do this._

* * *

The two of them slowly settled in, side by side on his bed, legs stretched out in front of them. It was a familiar position for them, made even more so by the posters on the wall, relics of the old days. They had spent lazy weekend afternoons in the same position on one of their beds in the Gryffindor dormitories, listening to music or studying, sometimes sharing a smoke.

Back then, he would have said that James and Remus were both his best friends, but the relationships were very different. James was like his brother. After the first few years of friendship, they were so in sync, they didn’t even need to talk to understand each other. Their friendship was active, directed outwards, doing everything side-by-side. Playing Quidditch, setting up pranks, chasing girls. They talked seriously when they needed to, but those times became less and less frequent as they settled into their dynamic.

Remus had always been different. If his friendship with James was directed outward at the world around them, his friendship with Remus was more directed between the two of them. They were more likely to spend time alone together, sitting on one of their beds and talking, without feeling the need to run off and stir up some trouble. There was more friction between them than in his friendship with James. Sometimes, they misunderstood each other, or ended up bickering. The two of them had to work to communicate; it didn’t come as effortlessly as with James. Sometimes the tension between them boiled over into the physical. Though Remus generally had himself under control, their arguments came to blows on rare occasions. More frequently, they worked out their frustrations with each other during the full moon, the dog and the wolf wrestling and snapping at each other when the boys could not.

All that was to say that this situation—sitting around with Remus, sharing a drink, talking quietly about old times, feeling a little wrong-footed all the while—wasn’t exactly unusual for them. But Sirius was used to their dynamic existing within the broader frame of the Marauders, coexisting and contrasting with the group dynamic, with his friendship with James and, to a lesser extent, Peter.

Things started out light, just shooting the breeze about old times, passing the bottle back and forth. They were verging on drunk, but not too much so to have a proper conversation: Remus still had that werewolf constitution that had impressed them so much back in school, and Sirius, well, he had built up a tolerance to liquor in the past two years.

But there were so many landmines. Every story, every mention of the way things had been, just drove the knife a little deeper. As the bottle began to empty, Sirius couldn’t stop himself from falling into a spiral. There was no way to talk about old times without talking about James. Every single memory was irrevocably colored by his presence, whether he played a central role or not. As Remus started reminiscing about some prank they had pulled on Snape in sixth year—one that he hadn’t approved of, at the time, but it seemed that enough years had passed for Remus to see the humor in it—Sirius felt a sudden swelling of grief, so sharp that he almost wanted to cry out.

This was the real reason, the heart of why Sirius had been avoiding Remus for months. In another world, a softer world, a world that, for a short time in 1981, was only a few wrong turns away from theirs, even if James and Lily’s deaths had been necessary to stop Voldemort, Peter would have been caught and Sirius would have gone free. In that world, Sirius would have still had Remus, and vice versa. The last two Marauders.

Remus would have understood what Sirius was going through. Really, he was the only person left in the world who could. They could have mourned James and Lily together. And yes, it would have hurt like hell, but eventually they could have healed and moved on.

Instead, that process had been arrested. And even though each of them had had years to supposedly work through their grief and loss, when Sirius saw Remus, all of that fell away and it was as fresh as though James had just died yesterday. If it were anyone else but Remus, Sirius could pretend, could hide his grief behind a layer of bravado. But Remus knew him too well for that.

Drinking with Remus might not have been such a good idea, because at this point in the night, Sirius couldn’t seem to think about anything else. He tried to stop himself, but in the end, he found himself interrupting Remus halfway through some story about their old school days, muttering, “I still can’t believe they’re really gone.” He felt a lump in his throat, but he wasn’t sure if it was due to grief for their deaths or grief that he’d had to wait so long to say those words to someone who would understand. Then, more quietly, he added, “Sometimes I feel like my life ended that night, too. Like the parts of me that mattered died when James did.”

Remus’s words cut off immediately, and Sirius could feel his muscles tense where they were touching. After a moment of silence, he responded, saying only, “Yeah.” His arm tightened around Sirius’s shoulders, pulling him closer.

They didn’t need to say anything more, Sirius knew that they understood each other, but now that he had started, it was hard to stop. So, even though it felt obvious and inane, he went on. “I miss them so fucking badly, Remus. Every day. It hasn’t gotten any better.” He had to clench his jaw to keep the tears back.

“Me too.”

The two of them sat like that in silence for awhile, Sirius leaning on Remus for support, shoulders pressed together, sharing their grief. It hurt, but in a good way. Being able to share it with Remus, to know that he understood everything Sirius was feeling because he felt it, too, was the first time Sirius’s grief hadn’t felt bottomless. He still felt flayed open by the pain of it all, but it didn’t feel quite as impossible as usual to believe that he might someday heal.

It hurt to sit there like that with Remus, but it hurt the way it hurts to reset a broken bone. For fourteen years, Sirius had needed this, but had been unable to have it. He had resigned himself to moving on without it. To get it now required him to re-open all of those old wounds, to face all of the hurt that he could shove deep down and ignore with anyone else but Remus. To acknowledge all of the ways that he had failed to move on, the parts of himself that were still stuck in the past.

“Who would’ve thought,” he began, voice quiet, “that we’d be the ones left behind? Just old Padfoot and Moony.”

“Well,” Remus answered, his voice a little lighter than it had been, “There’s worse company, to be sure. One of us could be stuck with _fucking Wormtail_.”

Startled into laughter, Sirius felt a sudden rush of affection for his friend, for the dark sense of humor that he always knew how best to wield, even now. He tilted his head back and took another swig from the bottle, still chuckling.

“Fuck, that’s enough talk of old times,” Sirius said, taking advantage of the chance to change the subject. “What about since then? What did old Moony get up to while I was gone?”

Unfortunately, that seemed to be the wrong question, because the light mood didn’t last. Remus pulled away and turned to look at him, eyeing him warily, even with his eyes half-lidded from the booze. “Do you really want an honest answer to that?” he asked.

“Well, yeah. I’d tell you what I was doing, but it’s not exactly a thrilling tale, and you already know the gist. But you must’ve gotten up to something.” He listened as the man beside him took a deep breath, feeling suddenly nervous that he’d said the wrong thing.

When Remus began to speak, his voice was low and rough. “Look, I know, compared to what happened to James and Lily, compared to what happened to you, I have no room to complain. But, earlier, you said that a part of you feels like you died that night, too. Well, I spent almost every moment since then wishing that I had.”

Sirius couldn’t stop himself from letting out a sharp noise, like he’d been punched in the gut. Remus glanced at him, but when Sirius didn’t say anything, he continued. “I know it’s ungrateful for me to think so, but I did. I know you would’ve happily switched places with me. But I could never understand why, of the four of us, I was the only one to make it through that night. I… fuck.”

Sirius looked down at the bed, where Remus’s long fingers were tightening in the sheet. He wouldn’t meet Sirius’s eyes, but he continued to talk, the words seeming to pour out of him in a rush. “I had nothing before I came to Hogwarts, you know? I knew what the world thought of werewolves. I knew that my own father couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. I never expected to have a future at all, let alone people that accepted me and cared about me.

“Then I met you, and James, and Peter, and for the first time in my life, I was worth something. So why the fuck would the world take the three of you and leave me behind? That’s what I thought. It should have been me, not James. He had Lily, and Harry. He had a future ahead of him. In what universe should someone like me survive when someone like him died? What’s the point of keeping around a washed up werewolf who can’t even hold down a steady job?

“You want to know what I was doing, Sirius? I wasn’t living, I was just existing. Trying to drink enough that I might die without having to admit that was what I wanted. I had no relationships, no friends, no money, no job that lasted more than a month before Dumbledore asked me to take the post at Hogwarts. And every day that went on like that just confirmed to me that it should have been me in James’ place, because if our roles were reversed, he would have moved on, would have actually _lived_. He would have had something to live _for_.”

By the end of this, Remus was breathing hard, his voice almost a snarl, and Sirius thought he could hear the beginnings of tears in his voice. Carefully, he set the empty bottle down on the nightstand and shot his friend a look. He knew he must look horrified. He had wanted to believe, all alone in that cell, that at least one of them was doing alright. He would sit there, many nights, and imagine what Remus was doing at that moment. But he had never imagined this.

“You sound angry,” he said, voice shaking, and almost immediately regretted it. What a pointless thing to say.

“I—Of course I’m fucking angry!” Remus snapped, and Sirius recoiled slightly. “I was angry when I believed that you did it. Angry that I had trusted you. Angry that I hadn’t gone after you, that you hadn’t killed me instead of Peter. I always thought it would have been better that way.

“Then I found out that none of it was true, that none of this shit even had to fucking happen if you had just fucking _talked_ to me! If you had just trusted me, Sirius, we could have stopped it. Everything could have been different—for James, for you, for me. All of our lives were destroyed for no reason, because you didn’t even trust me as much as Peter fucking Pettigrew. What did I do, to make you feel like I would ever fucking betray the rest of you like that? How were you so blind that you didn’t realize I had nothing in my life that mattered besides my friends? How could you think I would ever give that up?”

Sirius clenched his jaw to keep himself from crying. He felt a muscle in his neck spasm. It was better to be angry than to break down, and he was too close already. “Fuck you, Remus,” he snapped. “At least you had the _choice_ to wallow in your own self-pity. I wasn’t given a choice, was just left in that cell to rot. You’re pissed off that I thought you were the spy, but when they told you that I betrayed James, that I killed Peter and those muggles, _you_ believed it. You knew how much I cared for James and Lily, but you couldn’t see past my fucking family. You were just like everyone else who was willing to believe I would turn traitor. Once a Black, always a Black, right?”

He knew that he wasn’t being reasonable, but the thought of Remus spending all of those years hating him, willingly believing that he would turn his own best friend, his fucking _godson_ , over to the Death Eaters, while he wasted away in Azkaban, was a betrayal so sharp he felt that it would cut him open and bleed him out. James would have never believed it. James would have never given up trying to get him out, to clear his name, because James had _known_ him. He had believed that Remus had known him, too. But apparently not.

“This isn’t about your fucking family,” Remus spat out, finally turning to face him. “Not everything is about them. You had been acting suspicious for _months_ , because you suspected me. I never would have expected you to betray James, but when I heard what happened, it felt like punishment for being arrogant enough to think I could understand what was going on in your head. It had taken me so long to believe that you were my friend, that I could open up to you. It felt like the universe was mocking me, telling me that I should have never believed that I could have friends like you lot. That it was my own naivety and desperation to trust someone, my inability to consider you might be the spy, that got James killed.” He paused, looking away, and when he spoke again, the anger was mostly gone from his voice. Left in its place was a weariness that seemed to go all the way down to his bones. “In a way, I guess it was. I didn’t suspect you before it happened, and I didn’t suspect Peter, either.”

Quick as it had come, the anger flowed back out of Sirius, leaving nothing but the alcohol that made his head swim and the tears that pricked at the corner of his eyes. He hadn’t suspected Peter, either, even though it seemed obvious in retrospect. In the end, he and Remus weren’t angry at each other. He understood how his friend felt, because he felt the same: full of rage and helplessness at how close it had been, at how just the smallest of changes could have fixed everything. Their lives, and the lives of everyone close to them, had been destroyed in a single night, all thanks to one or two small, avoidable mistakes. And they didn’t even have the luxury of believing that they had contributed to stopping You-Know-Who in the process, not now that he was back.

“Fuck, Moony, come here,” he finally said, and he shifted forward again until he could rest his forehead against Remus’s shoulder. Remus tensed up for a moment, but then he gave in, wrapping one arm back around Sirius and pulling him in.

Sirius felt like they were two refugees from a bygone era. Everyone else had been gone for years: James and Lily, the Peter they thought they knew, the Prewett brothers, Marlene and Dorcas and Caradoc. Regulus. Even Frank and Alice, who were gone in every way that counted. Their world, the place they belonged, hadn’t survived the first war, but somehow the two of them had. It seemed absurd that, after all these years, Sirius and Remus should still be hanging around. It seemed absurd that they were thirty-five now, but he wasn’t sure if that was because they should be younger, stuck in the past where everyone else in their lives had remained, or because they both seemed so much older, with wrinkled faces and gray in their hair, already broken by the weight of the years.

“I’m so angry all the time, Sirius,” Remus confessed, though his voice was quiet now. “Every time I see you, every time I look in the mirror, I just see what’s been done to us. What we’ve lost. There’s nothing else left for us. Fuck, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about it like this in a long time. I know it sounds horribly self-pitying. It’s just, it’s the whiskey, and _you_ , and—”

Sirius let out a sob, pushing his face against Remus’s shirt, trying to hide his eyes, letting his friend pull him close. This was different now, too. Back then, Sirius never would have spoken to his friends like this, so vulnerably. He would have played it off with a joke, afraid that if he expressed genuine emotion, James or Peter or even Remus would tease him, call him a girl. But he—and, he thought, Remus—were too old for that shit now, too tired to play games like that.

“We’re alive,” he said, breathing in the familiar smell of the man who was now his oldest friend. “We’re both alive. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?” Underneath him, he felt Remus’s muscles move, his shoulders shifting upwards in a shrug. “I haven’t felt alive in years, but it helped that you were, you know? When I was there. In Azkaban. It helped to know that you were out there in the world somewhere, living your life. It made me feel like I hadn’t quite lost everything.”

Remus’s arms tightened around him, and when he spoke, his voice was so quiet, so vulnerable, that he sounded for a moment like he was sixteen again. “I didn’t have anything like that,” he admitted. “I felt like I _had_. Lost everything, I mean. I was only gone for a week, Sirius, and when I came back, everyone who had ever made me feel like my life was worth anything was gone. Vanished overnight. It’s selfish and idiotic, but the times when I hated you the most, you know, it wasn’t for betraying James and Lily. It was for leaving me alone. I’ve been so alone, Sirius.”

And if Sirius wanted to be a dick, he could remind him, again, that Remus could have chosen to make new friends. That he hadn’t been the one locked away from the entire world, written off by everyone who should have realized he was innocent. But it wasn’t a competition. There was no prize for whichever of them had suffered the most. All they had left was each other, so, in the end, the rest of it didn’t matter. Instead, Sirius just pulled Remus closer and said, “I’m here now. I’m not going away again. You don’t have to be alone, not anymore.”

Even back when they were younger, this would have been an unusual amount of physical contact. For this Sirius, who had spent the past fourteen years with nothing but a few quick hugs, the amount of contact was overwhelming, almost dizzying. They had long since moved beyond a casual hug or a bit of a wrestle. Remus had slid to a position halfway between sitting and lying down, and Sirius was half on top of him, face pressed into his shoulder, Remus gripping him as though he thought that if he held on tightly enough, they wouldn’t be separated again.

The fact that Remus seemed as desperate for contact as Sirius was the only thing keeping him from becoming awkward and self-conscious, even after all the liquor and tearful confessions. He was sure that they must look ridiculous to an outside observer: two drunk, bedraggled grown men on the verge of tears, having a cuddle in a bedroom fit for a rebellious teenage boy. But if he was a huge girl after all, at least he wasn’t alone. It might be weird later, having to look each other in the eye after all this, but right now, Remus was warm and his hand was stroking Sirius’s hair and he felt cared for, safe, in a way that he had never expected to feel again. Just to be held by another person, something that he had taken for granted before, had become an almost inconceivable luxury.

Drunk as he was, Sirius still had something of an animal instinct, a perspective on the world that had tied him to Remus since he first became an Animagus, and he could tell the moment that the atmosphere shifted, went from simple companionship and comfort to something else entirely. It was evident in all of the most subtle of details: the pattern of Remus’s breath, his pulse, the motions of the hand stroking his hair, and, most of all, the warmth spreading through his body.

It was the sort of warmth he had only experienced once or twice, and only just barely, since his escape from Azkaban, and never in the twelve preceding years. It wasn’t the type of feeling that could arise in the presence of a Dementor, obviously, and it had become an almost alien sensation, something so far removed from the conditions of his life as to be laughable. Still, despite how long it had been, Sirius recognized desire when he felt it.

Sirius’s breath caught in his throat at the realization. He wanted to discard the observation, to write the feeling off as impossible. It wasn’t that Remus was a man. Sirius might have been popular with the ladies, back in the day, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done some experimenting here or there.

It was just that desire had no place in his relationship with Remus, and desire for Remus had no place in his understanding of _himself_. If he had felt this way twenty years ago, he could have accepted it. Their relationship had always had a tense sort of physicality to it, so it wasn’t impossible for him to picture them getting sloshed one night and just, well, going for it. It would have been surprising, yes, but when you’re young and reckless and half in love with every one of your friends already, a bit of drunken fumbling isn’t exactly out of the question.

To feel desire for Remus _now_ , though? He couldn’t wrap his head around it. In his mind, the two of them, and their relationship, were frozen back in 1981. Their story was long since over, and the time they spent together now was nothing but a replay, an echo, of past events. Their relationship couldn’t change now, not to include something as unexpected as physical desire. The very thought was absurd. Surely if something like that were going to happen between them, it would have a long time ago. It was far too late.

No, it was better to write it off as a fluke. Having his soul slowly sucked out for over a decade had pretty much erased Sirius’s libido, and the stress of being on the run hadn’t been exactly a good environment for that to change. This was nothing more than his body picking an inconvenient time to wake back up, reminded by the firewhiskey and the physical contact that once, a lifetime ago, he had quite liked getting off with people. Nothing to do with Remus in particular; this could’ve happened with anyone.

Still, best to extract himself before the situation became any more awkward. Pushing up on his elbows, Sirius pulled away enough to meet Remus’s eyes, meaning to give his friend an apologetic smile.

Unfortunately, drunk Sirius, particularly a drunk Sirius who had gone over a decade without human contact, apparently didn’t have enough control over his facial expressions to pull that off, because the moment that Remus saw his face, his eyes widened in surprise, pupils dilating, and Sirius knew immediately that he was found out. “Sirius,” Remus said, under his breath, looking up at him. “What—”

In his head, Sirius was screaming at himself to deny it, to make it into a joke. He knew that Remus would let him, would follow his lead and pretend he hadn’t noticed, if Sirius made it clear that he wanted to hide it. But their tendency to brush the tough things under the rug had already ruined their lives once, and if he had learned one thing, it was that everything could be lost in an instant. If he missed one chance, put his walls back up and shut Remus out, there was no guarantee there he would get a second.

So, ignoring his good sense, Sirius found himself saying, “Tell me to stop.” His voice was low, almost dangerous, and Remus sucked in a sharp breath, but he didn’t push him away. He brought his hand up again, gently cupping the nape of Sirius’s neck, and that was all the permission that Sirius needed to close the distance between them.

If Sirius had ever taken the time to imagine what kissing Remus would be like, way back then, this wouldn’t have been it. For one, they both had facial hair now, something that had never been the case when they were younger. For another, particularly with the alcohol, he would have expected it to be harsh and lustful and animal, all teeth and tongue, happening too fast for either of them to think twice.

He wouldn’t have expected it to be like this: slow, gentle, almost sad. Heated, yes, but tempered by the weight of their history. Unhurried, fitting together so easily it was as though they had been doing this for years. More than anything, more than he ever would have expected, it just felt _right_. It was as comfortable and warm as the way Remus had been holding him earlier, just with something more added on top. Something that satisfied an ache he hadn’t even realized was there.

Remus had always been lanky when they were younger, but where the years had left Sirius on the verge of emaciated, Remus had actually filled out. He had developed a bit of paunch, it seemed, which gave softness and bulk to his already tall frame. And under the softness, there was a strength to him as well. Between those changes and the weight Sirius had lost, there was a wonderful feeling of comfort and protection in having Remus’s arms wrapped firmly around him. Given his preferences, which leaned mostly towards people of the female persuasion, Sirius was not used to snogging someone larger than himself (or, for that matter, someone with a mustache), but, unexpectedly, it felt natural and easy.

At first, Sirius still wasn’t sure why he was doing this, or what he actually wanted. Maybe he was just looking for comfort and familiarity wherever he could find it, and the sudden interest in snogging Remus was nothing more than a crossed wire somewhere in his brain, just a result of his need for closeness with someone.

Then, without planning to, he let his mouth open slightly and ran his tongue over Remus’s lower lip and the other man _moaned_ , and Merlin, he had never imagined that his reserved, sarcastic Moony could make a sound like that, that _Sirius_ could draw a sound like that out of him. And from the way his body reacted, it wasn’t just about comfort. He wanted Remus, wanted him to keep making noises like that.

Sirius wasn’t that drunk, but he was certainly grateful for the extra courage the liquor had given him, that he could allow himself to melt so totally into the man underneath him and push aside, at least for now, the small part of his brain that was demanding to know what the fuck he was doing. He cupped Remus’s face in one hand as they kissed, fascinated by the unfamiliar feeling of stubble under his hand and by the feeling of the pulse fluttering against his fingertips where they touched the corner of Remus’s jaw.

In response, Remus let his hand fall to Sirius’s hip, and his fingers traced the sliver of bare skin exposed where the bottom of his shirt had ridden up. And yes, Sirius certainly had suspected in the past that Remus might not be entirely heterosexual, though with characteristic Moony reticence, he had never spoken enough about his love life to confirm or deny anything. And yes, with that in mind, he might be expected to know what he was doing. Remus might be a bit shy and withdrawn, but _he_ hadn’t spent the last decade in prison. Even if he hadn’t had a relationship, it was only logical to assume he’d had dalliances, here and there.

Sirius knew all of that. It wasn’t like he expected Remus to be a blushing virgin. But when Remus bit down on his lower lip with just the perfect amount of pressure while simultaneously running his fingernails lightly over the bare skin of his side, Sirius couldn’t help but let out a surprised, helpless moan. He had never expected Remus to be so _wicked_ , his hands and his mouth so skilled that Sirius felt clumsy and out of practice in comparison. (Then again, maybe he was average and Sirius was just easily impressed. It wasn’t like he had any recent experiences to compare him to, and all of his pleasant memories had faded after the years in Azkaban, snogs included.)

He couldn’t seem to stop making noise, small, desperate moans and hums into Remus’s mouth, and it was getting harder to remember why on earth they hadn’t been doing this all along when they fit so perfectly together. The longer they kissed, the more heated it got, the more he began to feel that the absurdity was not that he was snogging Remus Lupin but that it had taken him this long to do so. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper hard-on, other than occasional morning wood, and he’d begun to wonder if he’d just lost interest in sex altogether, but now he was rock hard and straining against the fabric of his trousers.

The flash of relief that he felt, to know that he wasn’t as broken as he had thought, quickly vanished from his mind, crowded out by the pleasure that he felt when he pressed his hips downwards, just a bit, to grind his erection against Remus’s thigh. He knew Remus must have felt it, because his body shuddered under him and he let out a sharp noise, almost a snarl, in response.

Then, just as suddenly, Remus was breaking the kiss, pushing him back. “Sirius, stop. You’re drunk, and in a bad place. You don’t know what you’re doing.” The loss of contact was almost physically painful. Sirius didn’t want to be separate from Remus. He didn’t want there to be any space between them at all, because then he would be alone.

“You’re right, I don’t,” he admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. But this feels like the first real thing that’s happened to me in years. I feel _alive_ again, Moony. I don’t want to stop and go back to the way things were before.”

That was the crux of it, really. Sirius wasn’t quite sure what this change in their relationship meant, but he had never been so happy to not know something before. The fact that, after all this time, there could still be something new to learn about himself, about Remus, about their relationship, gave him hope. Like maybe his life wasn’t over quite yet. Like maybe the future actually held something good for him, for a change.

The way Remus looked at that confession made Sirius feel a little uncomfortable. There was desire in his eyes, yes, but also something like concern or sympathy. Sirius didn’t want his pity, didn’t think he could stand it. But he forgot it all quickly enough when Remus nodded, pulling him back down for a bruising kiss.

The pleasure of kissing Remus was as much mental as it was physical. It wasn’t just that he was a good kisser, or that it had been a long time. There was more to it than that. Sirius had people that he cared about, primarily Harry, but when it came to friends, to peers, Remus was all he really had left. There on his childhood bed, half drunk with liquor and pleasure, he felt like he and Remus were the last two people standing at the end of the world. Remus _knew_ him like no one else did, he understood exactly how Sirius felt, and all of a sudden, he couldn’t get close enough to him. He wanted to consume Remus entirely, to be consumed by him in return, so that neither of them would ever have to be alone.

He also wanted Remus to be wearing substantially less clothing.

“Get these _off_ ,” Sirius groaned impatiently, trying to push at the hem of Remus’s jumper and fumble with the clasp of his trousers at the same time, and the soft laugh that Remus let out in response was so perfectly _Moony_ that he was momentarily overwhelmed by affection for the man. No matter how many years had passed and how much gray they each had in their hair, underneath it all, he was still the same boy with whom Sirius had passed the best years of his life. To hear him laugh like that made him feel young again, too, as though no time had passed at all.

Remus pulled back, beginning to undress himself, and Sirius swallowed heavily. His eyes were glued to Remus’s hands as they unbuttoned his trousers, but he paused before pushing them down. “Are you going to just sit there staring, or are you going to get naked?” he asked Sirius, smiling a little.

A jolt of something close to panic went through Sirius. Somehow, in his eagerness to get Remus naked, he had forgotten that he would be expected to do the same.

Sirius had never been modest. He was always the first of the Marauders to strip, requiring almost no provocation or excuse. But that had been then, when he was young and whole and confident, with a flawless body and little concern for what anyone else might think. Now, though, he was scrawny, almost emaciated, marked with wrinkles and scars. He could hardly stand to look at his own body most days, to see the way he had been ravaged by the years in Azkaban, the way he looked so much older than his thirty five years. And Remus had known him when he was young, had seen him naked back then, probably dozens of times. He would be able to compare his body to what it had once been, and he would probably be disappointed.

The smile on Remus’s face slowly shifted to a look of concern, and he paused in his motions, leaning forward instead to look him in the eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Sirius had been more honest and open with Remus tonight than he had been with almost anyone in who knows how long, but it still hurt like hell each time he was forced to bare his wounds, to allow Remus to look inside. “I’ve changed, Remus. I know my body isn’t what it once was. I—fuck,” he said, looking away, having to fight back tears all of a sudden. “I don’t want you to see.”

Remus cupped his cheek with one hand, forcing him to meet his gaze once more. “You’re not the only one, Sirius. I’ve got probably three times as many scars as I used to, not to mention quite a few extra pounds. Neither of us are teenagers anymore. I’m not expecting you to look the same as you did back then, and I hope you’re not expecting me to either.” He was smiling, but he looked a little nervous now, too, as though Sirius’s insecurity had rubbed off on him.

Sirius scrambled to try to backtrack, because the last thing he wanted to do was make Remus feel like he had something to be ashamed of. “That’s different, you’re—” He trailed off, uncertain how to continue. It wasn’t as though Remus hadn’t been good-looking in his own way, but that had never been the point.

When he thought about Remus, he thought of the flash of his green eyes, his crooked smile, the freckles on his shoulders. Things that were always there, whether he was a lanky, awkward teenager or a weary, scarred adult. Whereas Sirius’s appeal had always been something more transient: a good body, stylish hair, a confident, devil-may-care attitude that didn’t come naturally to him like it once did. He had been broken long ago, and now his old confidence was more like a costume, something he could still slip into when he needed to, but no longer a part of him. What was left of him for someone to want?

Sirius didn’t want to have to think about this. He would’ve been happy with a drunken fumble, something that happened too quickly and with too much passion, for him to think, to doubt himself. He wanted to lose himself in it. But Remus, it seemed, had other ideas. His eyes were soft and fond, and when he slowly began undressing Sirius, Sirius didn’t protest, just looked away.

The urgency with which they begun had transformed into something else, something just as warm but slower, more tender. Once both were fully undressed, Remus and Sirius laid down on their sides, facing each other, leaving enough space between them to see each other.

Remus’s eyes trailed down his body, and Sirius had to clench his fist at his side to fight off the urge to hide, to cover himself. Remus didn’t look disgusted, though, and his fingers followed the path of his eyes. He ran his hands down Sirius’s arms, over his concave stomach and the half-gray trail of hair below his navel, fit his fingers into the spaces between his ribs. He touched Sirius so gently, as if the slightest bit of pressure might bruise him, and it was just bordering on the edge of too much to bear when his hand slipped around to rest flat against Sirius’s back. He rubbed soothing circles, like he knew just what he needed, and Sirius shook slightly in response.

As he slowly relaxed into his friend’s touch, becoming slightly less self-conscious, Sirius realized that he was allowed to look as well, and suddenly he wanted nothing more. He raked his eyes over Remus’s body, taking the sight in hungrily—he had seen him naked after the full moon, yes, but he had been colorblind and trying not to make Remus uncomfortable by looking too much. Now that he was allowed to look as much as he wanted, though, he openly stared, taking in the familiar bits as well as the new.

Remus hadn’t been lying; his body was fuller, softer, and there were significantly more scars covering his skin than before. There were more scars that Sirius didn’t recognize than ones that he did. He ran one fingertip over a newer scar on Remus’s chest, glancing up at his face to see his expression twitch, as though he were fighting off feelings of awkwardness himself. Then he leaned in, as if to get a better look, before touching his lips to the scar. Remus’s hand flexed on his back like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself, but Sirius kept on with it, running his lips and tongue and fingertips over each scar and blemish, feeling the steady heartbeat underneath it all.

Sirius moved along his chest until he reached a nipple, and other than the bit of hair around it, it wasn’t much different than with a woman. He swirled his tongue around the nub, biting down very gently. He was rewarded by a soft gasp and Remus’s hand, flying up to cup the back of his head and tug gently on his hair. He listened closely, gratified, as Remus’s breathing sped up, becoming almost ragged.

Then he pulled away, just enough to get a better look further down Remus’s body, and— _oh_. Sirius’s eyes widened, and he shot a slightly incredulous glance up at Remus’s face, raising his eyebrows in an unspoken comment, something like, “Been holding out on us, Moony?” Because, while he had seen Remus naked plenty of times, he had never been _hard_ , and Sirius had never expected him to be so, well, big.

Remus met his eyes with an uncertain smile, his cheeks reddening, managing to look both proud and embarrassed at the same time. Sirius might have teased him, but making jokes was his way of distancing himself, and he didn’t want to do that. Instead, he just slid his hand downwards to wrap around Remus’s cock, feeling the heavy weight of it in his hand, and the whole time he kept his eyes glued to Remus’s face, watching with fascination, drinking in the way that his eyes fluttered shut and his lips parted slightly at the touch.

Sirius began to stroke, but before he could do much, Remus let out a frustrated noise and pulled him closer until their bodies were pressed flush together again, Sirius’s hand trapped between. He pulled it quickly out of the way and let himself be pulled into an open-mouthed kiss, moaning into it as Remus rocked his hips against Sirius’s, sliding their cocks together. He breathed heavily as Remus kissed from his mouth to his ear, his skin tingling everywhere Remus’s lips touched, and he shivered at the feeling of breath ghosting over his ear when Remus whispered, “What do you want to do?”

 _Fuck_. Sirius couldn’t even begin to answer that question, because he wanted everything. The question wasn’t what he _wanted_ , since he realized, with a small shock, that he couldn’t think of a single thing he _didn’t_ want to do to Remus, or to have done to him. It was only a matter of what he could handle right now.

For instance, he wanted to fuck Remus, but he didn’t know how to do it properly, without hurting him, and he was aroused enough that he didn’t think he’d last more than a single thrust anyway, which would be somewhat humiliating. And, though it was slightly harder for him to admit to himself, he also wanted to be fucked _by_ Remus, but that seemed a little intimidating for their first time (fuck, he didn’t even know if there would be a next time, and he was too scared to ask). Besides all that, he hadn’t gone that far with another man before, and he wasn’t sure how to tell what role a person expected to take. What if Remus only wanted to take one role, and would be offended if Sirius asked for the wrong thing, or take it as a sign that they weren’t compatible? Better to just stick to the basics.

“Can I suck you off?” he blurted out breathlessly, hoping that was a good answer. He felt stupidly nervous waiting for Remus to respond, almost like he was sixteen again, desperate for his friend’s approval. He had always wanted the other boy to think that he was cool, to let him in when he kept everyone else out, and some things never changed.

“Fuck,” Remus muttered under his breath, his eyes widening just a tad. “Fuck, alright.” Sirius had to bite his cheek to keep from smiling too widely, to keep from giving away how grateful he was that he had said the right thing.

Sirius pulled back enough to move down the bed, and Remus settled on his back again, propped up on his elbows so that he could get a better view. It would have made Sirius self-conscious, being watched like that, if it weren’t for the look in Remus’s eyes: an intoxicating mix of hunger, surprise, anticipation, and delight.

Sirius swallowed, slightly intimidated by what he was about to do, though he didn’t want to admit it. He had done this sort of thing once or twice, a long time ago, but not with anyone as big as Remus—nor with anyone whose opinion he cared about as much. He decided to begin slowly, kissing along his thighs, his soft and slightly fuzzy stomach, inhaling the musk of him. He could feel Remus’s eyes boring holes in the top of his head the whole time. Tentatively, he grasped the base of his cock, and when he closed his lips over the head for the first time, he looked up so he could watch Remus’s reaction.

Sirius flicked his tongue over the slit, getting used to the slightly salty taste of him, and was gratified to see Remus close his eyes and tilt his head back, moaning softly. He watched the movement of his neck as he did.

It was surprisingly intuitive once Sirius got into the rhythm of it. He couldn’t fit that much of Remus’s length into his mouth, and even what he could fit stretched his mouth uncomfortably wide, but he bobbed his head and used both hands to cover what he couldn’t fit, matching the motion of his mouth and hands so that they moved almost as one.

The best part, of course, was Remus’s response. After he got ahold of himself, he opened his eyes once more, watching Sirius raptly the entire time. Sirius did his best to maintain eye contact, wanting to be sure that Remus liked it. It seemed that Remus picked up on his desire for feedback, because he talked to him, praising him, gently instructing him on what to do, his voice soft and frequently broken by small gasps. With one hand on Sirius’s head, not pushing but just stroking his hair and face, Remus murmured things like, “Sirius, yes, you’re doing so good, you’re so good for me,” and “I think you can take me a little deeper, just relax and take it slow, yes, _fuck_ , Sirius, just like that, I knew you could take it,” and “Oh, fuck, your _mouth_.”

A small part of Sirius’s brain worried how awkward it would be the next time Remus called Padfoot a “good boy.” The rest of his brain was too busy feeling elated and proud, and he let out small whines and moans around Remus’s cock in his mouth, watching his face every time he tried something slightly different to make sure he liked it.

It wasn’t long at all before Remus’s noises got louder, his speech less coherent, and, finally, he gasped, “I’m close, _god_ , Sirius, I’m going to cum, you should—” and tugged gently at Sirius’s hair, trying to pull him free. But Sirius resisted, stroking quickly with both hands and sucking harder, taking as much of him into his mouth as he could. Remus’s eyes squeezed shut and he arched his back, chest heaving, mouth open and gasping, as he came in spurts into Sirius’s mouth, and Sirius ignored the bitter taste to swallow it all because it was _Remus_ , it was his taste and the evidence of his pleasure, and he didn’t want to waste it.

Still propped up on his elbows, shaking in the aftermath of his orgasm, Remus let out a soft, delighted laugh that caused an answering flutter in Sirius’s chest. “Get up here,” Remus panted, impatiently dragging Sirius up his body to kiss him deeply, sliding his tongue into his mouth like he wanted to taste himself on Sirius’s tongue. Remus let himself fall back onto the pillow again, freeing his arms to hold Sirius. Remus’s body under him was slick with perspiration, and Sirius’s arousal, which he had been ignoring to focus on Remus, returned with full force, rubbing against the other man’s hip.

Sirius broke the kiss and pressed their foreheads together, gasping, “Touch me, please, I need you to touch me,” and with another quiet laugh, Remus licked the palm of his hand and slipped it between their bodies, wrapping it around Sirius’s cock. It only took a few quick strokes to push him over the edge, spilling all over Remus’s hand and chest and stomach with a groan.

He wanted to just collapse onto Remus, but that would just make the mess worse. Instead, he slid down Remus’s body and began to lick him, cleaning his spend off Remus’s chest and stomach, even his hand. It was messy and undignified, but he sort of liked that, as well as the taste of Remus’s sweat underneath it all. (Sometimes, he wondered how much his sexual preferences had been affected by becoming a dog Animagus before he’d even lost his virginity.) And the sharp intake of breath he caused, the moan that Remus let out when Sirius sucked his fingers into his mouth, made it more than worth it.

Once satisfied, he kissed his way back up Remus’s chest, pausing to lick and nibble the side of his neck before settling down into his arms. Remus put one arm around his waist, sighing contentedly, and it hit Sirius all at once how much he fucking adored him. Unsure how to cope with it, he just buried his face in Remus’s neck again, kissing the skin there fervently.

“That was… fucking hell, Sirius, what was that?” Remus said, a tremor in his voice, but he didn’t sound angry, just stupefied.

“It was bloody brilliant, is what it was,” Sirius responded instantly, but he knew what Remus meant. “Surprising, though. I never imagined we would…” He trailed off, unable to put it into words.

There was a long silence, and then, so quietly Sirius could barely hear him, Remus muttered, “I did.”

Startled, Sirius rolled enough off of Remus to prop himself up on one elbow, wanting to see his face for this. “You what?”

“Imagined it, I mean. Not like I thought it would actually happen, of course.”

“But you wanted it?” Sirius said, knowing he must sound shocked. Remus wouldn’t meet his eyes, but he nodded. “How long?”

Remus paused like he was considering his answer, but Sirius suspected he already knew what he was going to say. “Probably since first or second year, I guess. Since before I knew what it was to want someone.”

Sirius couldn’t help but gape at him, even though part of him realized Remus must feel vulnerable after telling him something like that. “That long? Bloody hell, Moony, you really played it close to your chest.”

“That’s me, I guess,” Remus answered, offering him an uncertain smile. “I didn’t see the point. Didn’t expect you would ever… Did you?”

“I didn’t,” Sirius said, though he knew it wasn’t what Remus wanted to hear. “Not until just now, it never even occurred to me.”

Remus shrugged, his expression still guarded, and something in his eyes made Sirius’s chest hurt. “I guess wanting to do something like this with another bloke wasn’t the sort of thing you thought about,” he said, voice low. “Look, Sirius, I know things have been rough for you recently. If this was just an experiment, or you just needed comfort, that’s fine with me. I won’t push it. But now that you know how I feel, we can’t do this again, not if it’s just casual for you. I couldn’t bear it. I don’t mind if we go back to just being friends, but I can’t let anything damage our friendship. I’ve only just gotten you back.”

“Hey, Moony, look at me,” Sirius blurted out, touching one hand to Remus’s cheek, turning his head back to face him. “That wasn’t fucking casual. I don’t think anything between us could ever be casual. That was the most real thing that’s happened to me since I got back. Yes, it was a surprise. Doesn’t mean it was a bad one.” He could see the beginnings of a smile on Remus’s face, and felt himself begin to grin in response. “I need some time to adjust to this. It’s not like I was planning to declare you my boyfriend right this second, but if anything, that’s because that’s too trivial a word for it. Godson aside, you were already the most important person in my life. This is just a new way of expressing that.”

Remus looked away again, still looking troubled, despite the small smile on his face. “Isn’t that kind of fast?”

Sirius frowned. It was true that he hadn’t been going around nursing a secret crush on Remus, at least not anything he had put a name to. But… it hadn’t really come out of nowhere, either, had it? “You’re right, I didn’t feel the same way you did, not when we were younger. I just… wanted you to like me better than James and Peter, to think I was cool and interesting, and to tell me secrets you wouldn’t tell anyone else, and I was always disappointed when I thought we’d be alone together and someone else showed up, and holy shit, Moony, is this what that meant?”

Remus gave him a Look, eyebrows raised, a teasing smile on his face, and Sirius couldn’t help but laugh at his own thickness. It had taken him so long to ask himself the right question, even when the answer had been under his nose all along. “Fuck, you mean we could have been doing this the whole time?” he demanded.

Remus laughed, finally seeming to relax as he accepted that Sirius wasn’t playing around with him. One of his arms was still around Sirius’s waist, and he pulled him closer now, planting a kiss on his forehead.

Sirius pulled back just enough to meet Remus’s eyes again, hoping that his sincerity was evident in his face. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I’m kind of an idiot sometimes.”

“You’re here now,” Remus answered, and when he smiled, Sirius smiled back. Content, Sirius let his head fall back to rest on Remus’s chest. Neither of them had been especially lucky over the years. Both of them, in their own ways, had been defeated and alone, had felt that the future held nothing for them but more pain and loss. But as Remus held him, he allowed himself to hope that might not be the end of their story. That maybe, together, they could find something good enough to balance out all the bad.

Sirius Black had spent the first sixteen years of his life, and the last two months as well, living at 12 Grimmauld Place. But that night, cradled in Remus Lupin’s arms in his childhood bedroom, was the first time it ever felt like home.

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh I cried a lot while writing this. This can be interpreted as canon-compliant, or as sparking a divergence from canon where Sirius might live. I prefer the latter, because they deserved better than they got in the books.


End file.
